Friday, 18 January 2013

Eldridge Pope beers in 1896 - 1897

Many thanks to Peter Symons for passing on photographs of Eldridge Pope brewing records, the source of today's post.

I'm assembling an impressive set of brewing record photos. They're staring to cover quite a lot of Britain. It's good to have material from outside London (and Scotland), if only for comparison purposes. And I never tire of finding new AK's. Especially one that managed to hang around as long as Eldridge Pope's.

Nothing particularly odd in there. Though there are three Pale Ales with quite a small spread of gravities: 1048.5, 1051.5 and 1057.6. If you look in the table of Whitbread beers that I've included for comparison purposes, you can se that Whitbread also had three Pale Ales, but with slightly higher gravities of 1050, 1055 and 1061. I'm not sure how significant that is. It would depend on the price charged for the different beers.

One difference that is significant is in the hopping rate of the two breweries' Pale Ales. Whitbread's contain about 50% more hops.

Eldridge Pope and Whitbread both have two Milds. The former's X Ale is 10 points weaker than Whitbread's, but the stronger Milds of the two breweries are almost exactly the same strength. The hopping rate is a little lower in the Eldridge Pope beers, but not by much.

Eldridge Pope's Strong Ale, XXXX, is roughly similar in strength to Whitbread's KK, but has a much lower hopping rate. I think I'm detecting a trend here.

When comes to the Stouts, things are the other way around. The Eldridge Pope versions are more heavily hopped. Even though their strongest Stout is hardly stronger than Whibreead's Porter.

Here are their beers from 1896 - 1897 in convenient table format:

Eldridge Pope beers in 1896-1897

Year

Beer

Style

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Attenuation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

Pitch
temp

max.
fermentation temp

length
of fermentation (days)

1896

AK

Pale Ale

1048.5

1011.6

4.87

76.00%

7.33

1.50

2.5

2.5

2.5

60º

71.25º

8

1896

AK

Pale Ale

1048.5

1011.9

4.84

75.43%

7.03

1.44

2.5

2.5

2.75

59.5º

69º

8

1896

BAK

Pale Ale

1048.5

1011.9

4.84

75.43%

7.03

1.44

2.5

2.5

2.75

59.5º

69.75º

8

1896

PA

Pale Ale

1057.6

1014.4

5.72

75.00%

10.5

2.56

2.5

2.75

59.5º

70.25º

7

1896

XX

Mild

1049.0

1011.6

4.95

76.27%

4.36

0.91

2.5

2.75

60º

70.5º

7

1896

S

Stout

1061.5

1026.9

4.58

56.31%

9.43

2.50

2.5

59º

70.5º

8

1896

LTS

Stout

1051.2

1019.4

4.21

62.16%

10.37

2.23

2.5

60º

70º

8

1897

XXX

Mild

1065.1

1018.6

6.16

71.49%

6.25

1.75

2.5

2.5

2.75

60º

74.25º

9

1897

XX

Mild

1048.8

1013.9

4.62

71.59%

6.25

1.31

2.5

2.5

2.75

60º

69º

8

1897

XXXX

Strong Ale

1074.8

1023.8

6.74

68.15%

8.95

2.82

2.5

2.5

2.5

60º

74º

9

1897

KK

Pale Ale

1051.5

1014.1

4.95

72.58%

6.81

1.50

2

2.5

60º

69.5º

4

1897

XX

Mild

1049.6

1012.5

4.91

74.86%

6.23

1.33

2

2.5

60.25º

70.5º

4

Source:

Eldridge Pope brewing records

And here are Whitbread's from the same period:

Whitbread beers in 1896

Year

Beer

Style

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Attenuation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

Pitch
temp

1896

FA

Pale Ale

1050.4

1012.0

5.08

76.20%

10.03

2.24

1.67

1.75

57.5º

1896

2PA

Pale Ale

1055.4

1016.0

5.21

71.12%

13.99

3.64

1.5

1.75

57º

1896

PA

Pale Ale

1060.9

1016.0

5.95

73.74%

15.06

4.28

1.5

1.75

57º

1896

X

Mild

1058.2

1014.0

5.84

75.93%

7.50

1.90

1.75

1.75

60º

1896

XK

Ale

1064.8

1015.0

6.59

76.86%

7.50

2.12

1.75

1.75

58º

1896

KK

Stock Ale

1078.1

1030.0

6.37

61.59%

13.28

4.51

1.75

1.75

57º

1896

KKK

Stock Ale

1087.4

1034.0

7.07

61.12%

12.88

5.12

1.75

2

57º

1896

P

Porter

1059.6

1015.0

5.89

74.81%

7.79

1.94

1.75

1.75

60º

1896

C

Porter

1059.3

1016.0

5.73

73.01%

6.81

1.85

1.5

1.75

60º

1896

CS

Stout

1066.2

1020.0

6.11

69.79%

6.81

2.06

1.5

1.75

60º

1896

SS

Stout

1085.0

1030.0

7.28

64.71%

9.53

3.98

1.75

2

57º

1896

SSS

Stout

1094.5

1034.0

8.00

64.02%

9.53

4.42

1.75

2

57º

Sources:

Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan
Archives, document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/062 and LMA/4453/D/09/091

The last Eldridge Pope XX mild has only 4 days fermenting time. Its next-to-last XX (still 1897), and the one in 1896, took almost twice as long on average.

Why would this be? Their attenuations are 75%, 72%, and 76%, roughly.

The fermentation must have gone off like a bomb for the last one. And for the first one, perhaps it went too far but in the usual time since for the pales of similar OG their attenuation is about the same.

72% would seem to make most sense in terms of mild's character and as the XXs relate to the pales in this group, but perhaps they had trouble to hit it with regularity.

Matt said"he huntsman on the Eldridge Pope sign bears an uncanny resemblance to the one who used to front a former Leeds brewery's advertisng.

17 January 2013 07:19" I understand that the reason for this is that during the mid 1920s EP & Co were looking around for another trademark. They contracted to an advertising artist who had also been contracted by Tetley's. EP & Co didn't know that the artist had already designed the Huntsman logo for Tetley's and went ahead with it. So the artist got paid twice for effectively the same job. Tetley's found out and there was a bit of a gentlemen's agreement between brewers. EP threatened to sue the artist and got the TM on the cheap on the basis that it wasn't used north of Birmingham. The trademark was also altered so that EP's had a more "jolly" huntsman than Tetley's. (ERP's had a smile and Tetley's had a straight mouth. Interestingly enough, Carlsberg-Tetley bought the sole rights of use from EP in the 1980s for several million pounds and used EP as a distributor of their products. EP reverted to their old trademark of an E and P linked together in a shield. - MUCH MORE CLASSY ANYWAY. EP is no longer with us thanks to their board's "gambling" over the idea of being a pub company whilst selling the brewery off to a management buyout which eventually failed because they failed to win a continuing contract to supply EP pubs. The site in Dorch was sold to a company who was basically an asset stripper of breweries (see the sorry tale of Devenish's brewery)for redevelopment into retail and leisure. Thankfully, the architect has retained the brewery and this is to be converted into a hotel; the maltings into a theatre.

With regard to Kristen's conversion of the EP AK "recipe", EP were the "Kings of Parte-Gyling". We at Dead Brewers' Society have EP brewing records dating back to when they were brewing at their original brewery in Dorchester. Some of the records show upto 6 - yes, six qualities not just from one mash, but from 4 copper lengths blended together. Interesting that the gravity was 1049; by the time 1941 it had reduced to 1030.5! and shared its gyle and hop bills with 3 others (KK @ 1033.6, LXX (a light mild) @ 1027.7 and BAK (which was Crystal Light Ale - bottled) @ 1032.7. A 1928 AK, though, was brewed from one gyle only as an "entire" (300brls. EP weren't a piddly little local brewery - they could slam out a helluvalot of beer and in the late '80s managed to produce 600 bulk brls of their horrid Faust Export lager in one day from four copper lengths (they only had two coppers)and 3 mashes using two mash tuns. Some feat, eh!

Exactly the same 'Huntsman' design was used by Rayment's of Furneux Pelham, Hertfordshire, certainly as late as the early 1950s - my understanding was that all three brewers bought the right to use the design in their own area, quite legitimately, and it only became a problem when Tetley's began to intrude in Eldridge Pope's trading area, which is when Tetley's agreed to redesign theirs slightly.